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Ask the Flying Monkey! (May 20, 2009)

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Ask the Monkey! (Please include your city and state and/or country.)

Q: I was always under the impression

that Dom DeLuise, like other 1970s B-level comic figures such as Paul Lynde, Rip Taylor, and Charles

Nelson Reilly, was a not-very-closeted gay man. I was surprised, then,

that when he died last week, there was no mention of that in any article I saw.

I did read that he had a long marriage to a woman and several grown children

(certainly not proof of heterosexuality, but nonetheless). Was I just

misinformed? -- Thomasina, Alabama

Dom DeLuise

A: You and the Flying Monkey both. I also always simply

assumed DeLuise was gay, so I was as surprised as you were to read last week

that he’d been married for 44 years and had three children.

That said – and I’m not necessarily saying

anything about DeLuise, because I have no idea what the truth is – gay men of

that generation, especially actors, sometimes had an extremely strange

relationship with public declarations of homosexuality.

Last year, when we referred to Rip Taylor as

“openly gay” (because IMDb and many other sources list him as such), we

received an email from him, stating, “You don't know me to summarize

that I am openly gay. I don't know that you're not an openly heroin user. You

see how that works? Think before you write.”

If that email reads like it came from an alternate reality, it did: a

distant time when an indication of gayness was enough to get a celebrity

drummed out of his chosen profession, perhaps for good.

In other words, the comedians you mention, and

others, were allowed to be “colorful” and “flamboyant” – but only as long as

they never ever actually said they were “gay” (although Paul Lynde, envelope-pusher

that he was, sometimes came very close). Gay leading men, meanwhile, were

“allowed” their private lives – but only if there was no evidence of their

gayness whatsoever, often even around their “liberal” straight Hollywood

friends. Rock Hudson

wrote in his autobiography that he actually resented out gay people, and blamed

them for anti-gay bigotry. Such is

the mind-warping power of the closet.

And sometimes, as you say, the bargain these

actors made with the mainstream meant dating or marrying women.

Still, it’s hard for me to judge the choices made

by a previous generation, who know far better than I what they had to do to

survive.

Q: I was wondering if you knew if the

singer Jon McLaughlin is a gay ally. I know he is straight and I’ve seen him

live and he is amazing! – Travys

Jon McLaughlin

A: He is indeed down with his gay fans. The handsome singer, who sang the

song “So Close” in the movie Enchanted

(and saw his career take off after he performed the nominated tune at the 2007

Academy Awards), grew up in sometimes-conservative Indiana (after which he titled his second

CD, Indiana). But Jon spent his

childhood and teen years doing musicals and plays – which, stereotypes be

damned, meant spending a lot of time around gay people.

Next page! Hey John Schneider, how's it hanging?

Q: I recently watched the final few

episodes of Dirty Sexy Money, and to

my surprise, John Schneider played a gay senator. I know he’s a Christian, but

did I jump to conclusions to assume he leans to the right politically? (If you

have seen those Dukes of Hazards

photos of him in tight jeans, you know he leans to the right in more ways than

one!) -- Bambino Italiano

A: Now hold on there, Bambino – this is my

column, and I’ll make the cheeky, funny comments, thank you very much! The

first rule of writing to the Flying Monkey is that you can’t be wittier than he

is.

As to how “right” Schneider leans, it’s true that Schneider is a born-again

Christian. But a typical right-winger? I’m not so sure. After all, he became

born again after living with Johnny and June Carter Cash, and Johnny, while a

devout Christian, was a close friend of Al Gore, a Native American rights

activist, and an opponent of the Iraq War – about as far from the typical

right-winger as you can get.

(Speaking of Cash, do yourself a favor and go listen to “The Man Comes

Around,” the title track from his 2002 CD that is even better than “Hurt,” the

break-out single. Do it now!)

Anyway, I’d like to believe that Schneider, like Cash, is one of those

Christians you don’t hear much about: the open-minded, non-sanctimonious,

deeply empathic kind. You know – the ones who actually imitate Christ?

For the record, at 49-years-old, Schneider still looks pretty fricking

amazing.

Schneider then and now. Does he still lean to the right ... politically?

Q: I know you guys are tied to the

Logo network, but I would like to know what has been going on over at here! TV.

Last year they had a great podcast that they were turning into a TV show (The Ben and Dave Show), when suddenly

Ben was gone from the network. This year they had several great podcasts,

and now they’ve dropped all of them. Is this some straight-owned network

that doesn’t know what they're doing, or just some corporation only looking at

the bottom line? Now they have even canceled their Hot Gay Comics TV show. – Scott,

Rochester Hills, MI

A: Ben Harvey left the network in April to work for the gay radio show, Radio with a Twist (currently on

hiatus).

Will he work with Dave Rubin again? “Funny you ask, because we’re reunited

and back in action with a new show,” Ben tells the Flying Monkey. “It’s called So What, Who Cares? – an SNL/Joy Behar/The View reference. It’s a podcast – for now.”

Ben Harvey and Dave Rubin

As for here!, they’ve shifted their priorities away from podcasts to network

programming – though one former podcast, Josh

and Sara, is still being filmed for TV. Hot

Gay Comics hasn’t been canceled and is still airing new episodes. And I

can’t speak to how “bottom-line” the network is, but I can tell you it’s owned

by two men – one straight (Stephen P. Jarchow), but also one gay (Paul

Colichman).

And for the record, while AfterElton.com is owned by Logo/MTV, we’re

editorially independent.

Q: I was watching The 2009 TV Land

Awards (loved Neil Patrick Harris) and

I had a question about the Home Improvement cast. Jonathan

Taylor Thomas was missing from the group. Is there bad blood between him and the Home Improvement cast and crew? Also,

what is he up to now? -- Reid, Orlando, FL

A: I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already

been explored in much greater depth on E!’s True

Hollywood Story, but yes, there was reportedly bad blood between Jonathan

and the Home Improvement cast

(especially Tim Allen) when he left mid-way through the eighth season, and

didn’t return for the finale the following year, because he had landed movie

roles (as hard as it is to imagine now, Thomas was then a Very Big Deal).

“I think he might be in New York going to school now, so maybe he didn’t

want to take a flight out to L.A.,” TV bro Zachary Ty Bryan told TV Guide, though he says the actor did

attend his wedding three years ago.

Nonetheless, Thomas’ absence got plenty of tongues

wagging. Was it lingering resentment?

Thomas wasn’t talking – nor is he interested in

telling AfterElton.com readers what he’s up to lately. He didn’t respond to a

recent interview request.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Next page! Why the Yellow Brick Road is a perfect metaphor for the gay rights struggle.

Q: I know

the struggle for GLBT rights isn’t over, but it sure seems like we’ve come a

long way. Still, it’s interesting to ask: do you think we could have gotten

where we are any sooner? – Marshall, Key West, FL

A: Alas, there is no shortcut down the Yellow Brick Road.

Think about it: for years, the only media images

of gay people were the worst imaginable –serial killers and child-molesters.

Sure, some of it was because the media were lazy,

and because the mainstream wanted us

to be represented by these images in order to do what the mainstream always

does: try to keep things exactly the way they are.

But often it was because these were the only

public GLBT images that existed. When 500 priests are accused of molesting

altar boys and all the other gay priests refuse to come out, the

child-molesting priests are going to win the news cycle any day.

Unlike most racial minorities, the real battle the

GLBT community faced wasn’t really against discrimination. After all, many –

most? – of us could avoid overt discrimination just by pretending to be

straight. But it was a Faustian bargain; hiding just made it worse for those of

us who couldn’t hide or were somehow exposed. And it made it very difficult for

all of us to love.

No, our community’s real enemy is, and always was,

the closet. It warped our minds and turned us against each other.

Could we have broken out of the closet any sooner?

Sure, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we always had the power; all we had to do is

click our heels – or, in our case, come out – and we would have been

transported wherever we wanted to go.

But also like Dorothy, if someone had tried to tell us

this at the start of our journey, we wouldn’t have believed it. And for the ruby slippers to work,

you have to believe.

As a community and as individuals, we had to learn

that not all straight people are bigoted and ignorant. We had to learn that

Grandma wouldn’t really have a heart attack when she finally learned we were

gay. And we had to learn to trust that other GLBT folks would have our backs.

Now that we’re almost at the doors of the Emerald City, it’s tempting to think we could

have gotten here sooner, to blame others for doing things we thought were shortsighted

or counter-productive.

And truthfully, I could have missed a few events along the way: the horrible "scarecrow" that was Matthew Shephard, for example, and the “poppy field” of AIDS.

But in a way, to get where we are now, we had to go through what we did then. We paid a terrible price to get where we are, but we're almost home. The heart's desire is a beautiful thing, and I for one am not wasting a minute blaming my traveling companions because we didn't here any sooner.

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Ask the Monkey! (Please include your city and state and/or country.)

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